Free thinking from Grayling people

What do Europeans think about artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the future, we're told. It's certainly gaining interest, with searches for the term increasing by around 30% over the past 5 years.

So it's no wonder many brands want to "own" this space. That said, to do this effectively, you have to understand how this complex issue is perceived; and there's no better place to reveal a person's true perception than by what they're searching on Google.

With this in mind, the GCore team looked at how people searched for AI in Google across three major European countries: France, Germany and the UK, analysing how popular each of the individual searches were and categorising them into topics - and resulting in the below:

So what stands out?

Insight #1

The first insight we can gain is that the majority of people don't really know what AI actually is:

So if a brand wants to be a leader in this space, they have to act as an educator (and start at a very basic level).

Insight #2

Next, we see that people want brands to lead this space, with searches that included brand names the second most popular category:

The most popular names we see associated with AI are Google, Microsoft and IBM. Whilst these are all brands that have made significant investments in the technology, it shows their efforts are recognised by the general public.

Insight #3

Then we see that people are more likely to be searching with concerns about AI than the benefits; so a reassuring tone is needed when writing content.

Insight #4

Lastly, unsurprisingly, we see that people care very little about the ethics and governance around the issue. This is probably because, if you don't know what it is, you won't be looking into these finer details. So there's an awareness raising piece needed here to create a more informed public debate, which is a great opportunity for any brand or association to capitalise on.

Key takeaway

Brands can lead the AI landscape, but an informative and reassuring tone is needed.

Like to know more?

That's just a taste of what we found with this data, so if you'd like to know more, drop us a tweet or an email the GCore team - we'd love to hear from you...

Alex Judd

Latest Insights

15th November 2016

Is This Real Time?

Will Kunkel, Executive Vice President for Creative and Content in Grayling New York, on the final of our #7for17 trends, Live and Uncut‘Timing is everything’ has been a favorite line to many but...